Welcome to 'Get Hyped!' The first of a soon to be ongoing blog series!

With the indie war heating up, each and every party has all cylinders firing, there's a buzz and excitement surrounding the indie scene like there rarely has been. Indie developers are stepping up and facing the big boys head on in defiance. They're proving everyday that you don't need a massive team and millions of dollars to make a great game. All it takes is a small, dedicated and passionate team with a vision.

The definition of indie is loose but I would usually say having no publisher is big tick on the box. I'm ignoring that this time though. Simply because a couple of my most anticipated games from smaller independent studio's have indeed secured a publisher. Don't be fooled. All these games are coming from tiny to modest sized, independent game studio's.

Now, on to my personal picks for Top 5 Indie Games to Watch!

#5)THE FOREST (PC)

Not much is known about this open-world survival horror game but the teaser trailer is hinting at something tonally impressive. After crashing on an Island, you're left to figure out your own survival. It's a little bit like a photo-real Minecraft. You wander the landscape searching, scavenging, finding shelter, growing food...Okay, it's not a "little" bit like a photo-real Minecraft. It's exactly like that! Which is awesome!

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Build, explore, survive in this terrifying survival horror simulator.

Like Minecraft, things seem safe enough during the day but then it gets dark and all hell breaks loose, revealing the true horrors of The Forest.

The Forest was just green lit last month, so we got a bit of a wait but what's exciting is that the game is going to support the Oculus Rift which will no doubt make for some truly immersive suspense. If SKS Games can deliver on the promise, then us survivalists are in for a treat. Fans of survival horror and open world games alike. Put The Forest on your compass!

#4)OCTODAD: DADLIEST CATCH (PS4)

Octodad from developers Young Horses, is one of those games you simply can't help but smile at. For good reasons too. The game is just so ridiculous and charming in concept. An Octopus attempts to fool his family and the world into thinking that he is a human.

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Dadliest Catch is about destruction, deception and fatherhood.

Of course multiple limbs, with minds seemingly of their own, constantly trip you up, flip chairs and generally cause complete mayhem. It's a riot to watch. Each limb is controlled separately, which like Surgeon Simulator, makes for some terrific laughs and I mean that in the best way.

Sony smartly snatched up and presented Octodad during E3. There's no denying the amount of seriously good indies headed to the PS4. Seriously, the number is staggering. Octodad FTW!

Awesome, right? The isometric action/adventure game oozes with style and has wit to spare! Now get ready for the next injection of bad-ass narration as Transistor comes slicing it's way onto PS4 in the near future. Sony snags another for the indie lovers!

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Everybody has a voice in Cloudbank

While it may seem just like Bastian at first glance. Transistor is offering a ton of new gameplay systems to keep things fresh. You can pause time in battle to plan the perfect strategy, actually mapping a few attacks to targets. When you re-enter the battle, everything pre-loaded plays out at once.

Transistor promises to have incredible atmosphere and sound design--oh, and the narrators voice? It's your swords, which you pull from a dead body early in the game. Stoked for Transistor!

#2)BELOW (X-ONE)

I'm not a big lover of playing games on my phone but Superbros: Swords and Sworcery is one that really stood out. Its mix of beautifully immersive pixel art, interesting puzzles and trippy music combine to create one hell of an adventure. The genius team at Superbros/Capy are back to take us on another journey into the unknown with Below. The story, combat and puzzles are all still under wraps, which only adds to the anticipation.

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What...Lies...Below?

Like another game on this list, very little is known about Below so far other than what was revealed at E3. It continues in the pixel art style it's predecessor had and seems to once again cast you as a lonely adventurer. Below might look extremely minimalist in it's design but I can assure you, if S&S is anything to go by, we're in for another gem.

Based solely on how much I enjoyed S&S, I can't help but rank Below so high in my personal hype list. Are you brave enough for the adventure? Below looks fantastic!

#1)CRIMSON DRAGON (X-ONE)

Crimson Dragon comes from the mind of acclaimed game designer Yukio Futatsugi. Who is responsible for one of my favorite game series of a time long gone, Panzer Dragoon. Just saying the name brings back so many good memories. All three main entry PD games are still fantastic to this day. So you can imagine my explosive enthusiasm when I saw what Grounding Inc. was revealing to the world.

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Six types of dragons, over 100 skills, and 3-player online co-op

It was a spiritual successor to the dragon riding, aerial combat I adored. But this time it's packing gorgeous HD visuals, upgradable dragons and 3 player online co-op! Yes, you heard that right! Join two of your friends, saddle up and take to the sky for battle. Will you emerge victorious? Oh--and don't forget to feed your dragon while you tinker with your skill sets.

There's still a lot to learn about the game. My fingers are crossed that we see more at Gamesom coming up in August. Sony has some killer indies but Microsoft isn't slacking this upcoming gen either. That being said, Crimson Dragon is my personal Number One Indie Game to Watch!

NOTE: This #1 spot was originally going to be rewarded to FEZ II,despite Fish. But since there was a sudden cancellation of the game, I took this opportunity to sneak in another game with a Publisher...My rules!

I hope you enjoyed this list! What indie games are you most hyped on? Please share and keep the discussion going below!

We, as passionate gamers all have them. Those commercials we witness as children, where no matter the time lost or our overall senility, we'll never forget. This past week, the excitement of E3 2013 really had me reminiscing on some good memories. No scratch that, some absolutely fantastic, nostalgia inducing memories, of console wars and marketing face-offs.

The buzz in the game industry recently has been near deafening and there's good reason for the electricity to be hitting the levels it is. It's the first time in over a decade that two major consoles have literally gone toe-to-toe, releasing in the same month as each other(Based on Sony's "Holiday" release). Which means Marketing teams are going to be going into a full frontal attack for your holiday dollars soon. A lot of my favorite and personally(due to age) most influential game commercials were made in the 90's, a time when the console giants weren't afraid to directly poke fun at each other, to twist the knife. If this new excitement over next-gen is any indication, especially with Sony's go for the jugular approach at E3, the next few years may very well bring with it the return of the attitude era and the aggressive advertising jabs of a time long gone.

So with that said, here are few commercials of the 90's that will forever stick with me, always bringing up fantastic gaming memories. I hope they do the same for you too!

I Don't Care What You Want Me To Be!

I'll admit that as a kid, those above words and the following commercial influenced and defined my own attitude in general for a couple years. And for that reason, this commercial will forever be imprinted in my mind, beloved. I had a a Sega Genesis first, but after the fan disappointment of "No Blood" Mortal Kombat on Snes, Nintendo went to the extreme of hardcore to reassure the gamers that Nintendo was still the cool kid. I knew from this commercial on I wanted to be a part of the Play It Loud nation much to my mom's annoyance.

Mortal Monday!

When I think about the original Mortal Kombat and the impact the game had at the time, one commercial comes to mind every time. Like many commercials of the era, it's marketing was focused very specifically on a teen male crowd. Not surprising considering the ratio of male to female players at the time and the general content of the game. When Mortal Kombat hit arcades we were all in awe of it's digital violence and when it came time to release the arcade beast on consoles, Midway new exactly how to sell it in an unforgettable way.

Nintendon't!

Looking back on it, it's visually forgettable, but it contains a jingle so bad yet so effective that you can't help but sing it after viewing...and once that happens, it can't be undone. Which is why it will forever be infamously remembered by me. "Genesis-DOES! Genesis-DOES!"

Blast Processing!

Another prime example of the marketing face off Nintendo and Sega were having. Both companies tending to throw around hyperbole...and it worked. Blast Processing gave the Genesis fans something to brag about. It was ridiculously awesome...

..And then this happened...

The FX Chip!

What the heck was I looking at! As someone that grew up in the 80's and 90's, seeing games evolve so rapidly was really really wild. In what seemed like no time, the leap in visuals from the Atari to the Snes/Genesis was astonishing. Then Nintendo upped their game again and Introduced the world to Star Fox and the "FX Chip"...Our eyes melted.

Hey, Plumber Boy!

There was a new kid on the block and I'm not talking about Donny Wahlberg. I'm talking about Sony and the gorgeous platformer, Crash Bandicoot. As kids, few of us were taking Sony seriously at first. I mean who were they to try and make a game console. But then the Playstation arrived, defying expectations and changing the rules all over again. Nintendo for the first time not only had to watch out for Sega, but now they had to watch Sony coming strong from the flank as well.

Fly Plaything, Fly!

The 32/64-bit era brought some great console battles. Sony burst onto the scene and attacked Nintendo, then Sega turned it's attention away from Nintendo and directed it's fury at Sony. There was a legitimately serious Mexican stand-off going on. Everyone firing fast and wild. They would each survive to tell another tale, but Sega was ultimately wounded the most during this generation despite it's offensive approach.

It's thinking!

Sega was in trouble but there was a hint of light ahead. The Dreamcast. It was a system ahead of it's time. It was online capable in the late 90's, had dual screen action via the VMU(Visual Memory Unit) and it was the first home console to truly match visual capabilities of what we were seeing in the arcades. Soul Calibur on Dreamcast actually looked BETTER than it's arcade counterpart which was crazy at the time. Sega were losing gamers to the competition, severely over saturating the market with too many mediocre hardware releases didn't help. But in 1999 Sega was finally about to release a console truly worth getting excited over, and equally scared of...Thanks to this memorable live action commercial.

But then probably to due consumer mistrust after so many recent hardware releases being abandoned, the Dreamcast never truly caught on and sales dropped like dead flies. Then the games dried up. But those lucky enough to have had one know just how great it was. Shenmue alone was enough to make it worth a purchase, then it had Power Stone, Jet Set Radio, Crazy Taxi and a few more gems. After the Dreamcast's failure, Sega was ultimately pushed out of the Hardware business. Which is unfortunate as the Dreamcast really was deserving of more love.

Now You're Playing With Pow--er--I mean...Paul Rudd!

I know you've all only clicked on the article because it had Paul Rudd's name in the title. So hopefully this final fun ad satisfies. I never knew who he was at the time but this commercial was always burned into my young gamer mind. It wasn't till just a few years ago it came to my attention that the blurry figure in my memory, this lucky dude playing SNES games projected on a huge screen was none other than the charismatic actor so many adore today. Without further ado, Paul Rudd epically playing SNES.

I hope these commercials have brought back some good memories while at the same time get you exited for what's to come. What are some your favorite Game Commercials? Comment and Share them below!

Monday June 10th, my alarm wakes me up unusually early, but I don't care. It's a beautiful, sunny Vancouver morning. I have a quick breakfast, get cleaned up and head out for the day. Instead of taking my usual route to the office though, I instead took the skytrain over to a friends. It's now 8:55am and I knock on his door. It opens and I find 3 other man-children inside, giddy with excitement. We all have the day off and haven't been this overtly nerdy since the epic Snes and Genesis battle of the 90's. Four 30 year old men, gathering for 12 hours of live game announcements, pizza and chicken wings. Greg Miller and Co. would be proud. It's E3, baby!

There were a lot of impressive games on display at E3 this year. From insanely gorgeous racers to epic shooters, from cinematic role players to completely over the top fighters. If you like games, of any kind, this E3 had something for you. Please note I'm focusing on triple A core titles that featured actual gameplay footage. I haven't forgotten the indies nor am I ignoring them. That being said, here are some games that really stood out to me from the rest.

#8) Mirror's Edge (PS4/X-ONE)

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Wall run, slide, dodge, jump, disarm. Mirror's Edge is Back!

We saw so little of this and what we did see is probably just target footage. But hot damn, it was impressive. The parkour, combat and gorgeous production design was stunning to see. I absolutely fell in love with the original Mirror's Edge upon it's release. Not only was the single player experience incredible, for the most part. But the time trials and leader boards we're insanely addicting with the "one more time" phrase being repeated till you heard the birds coming out in the morning. I am so excited to see this world come back to life, especially with the advancements of the Frostbite engine. The new Mirror's Edge, if handled properly, is going to be a real gem of a game. It simply can't come soon enough.

#7) Infamous: Second Son (PS4)

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The visuals are insane and the gameplay mechanics look more fun than ever!

Now at the Sony conference, there wasn't too much gameplay shown. But SuckerPunch was showing off actual footage of Second Son in action after the conference and it really does impress. I'm a big fan of the last two games and I wasn't sure how much of a leap Second Son would really be over it's predecessors but to put it bluntly...Holy crap, It looks fantastic. The visuals are insane and the gameplay mechanics look more fun than ever. The way Delsin can shoot up vents and such as a cloud of smoke looks undeniably fun and the added benefit of the motion capture studio really pays off. The character animations, especially in the cut scenes are taken to a whole other level. SuckerPunch seems poised to enter into the realm of Naughty Dog quality soon and it's really exciting to watch.

#6) Destiny (PS4/X-ONE)

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From Bungie Studios, the creators of Halo.

It's a massive, planet jumping, co-operative online multiplayer shooter from Bungie Studios. The creators of Halo, arguably the best multiplayer game designers out there. Not only do they make rock solid games but they foster incredible community support. Destiny is a game that is, pardon the pun, destined to become a classic. No more needs to be said. Watch the demo being played live and enjoy.

#5) MGS5: The Phantom Pain (PS4/X-ONE)

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Snake? Snaaaaaaake!

Like all the games I've talked about so far. The demo says all that's needed to be said. Phantom Pain genuinely looks like a true advancement of the series a lot of us have come to cherish over the years. Everything I love about the series, minus David Hayter, looks to be taken to new levels of glorious by Kojima Productions. The open ended gameplay is what is really appealing about Phantom Pain, even more so than the series already presented. To me, Phantom Pain is to the stealth genre what Witcher 3 is to the RPG genre...A truly stunning and ambitious example of things to come.

#4) Dead Rising 3 (X-ONE)

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Fully open-world zombie game with real-time weapon modifications!

Yes, I know it's another zombie game and I know, while the first game was solid years ago, Dead Rising 2 wasn't that hot. But I really enjoy a good zombie game. I'll settle for the odd clunky mechanic if the game is fun and that's exactly what Dead Rising 3 seems set to deliver for Zombie fans...Fun, buckets and buckets of bloody fun. It's a respectably pretty, fully open world zombie game with real-time weapon modifications which up the tension and immersion. And did you see how many Zombies were on screen! That is awesome. The combat looks entertaining and violent enough to get me excited to try this for myself.

#3) The Witcher 3 (PS4/X-ONE)

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An utterly huge, fully open and explorable world with hours upon hours of dynamic content.

Absolutely breathtaking, truly next-gen visuals. An utterly huge, fully open and explorable world. An epic single player quest with hours upon hours of dynamic content. If you're into RPG's then The Witcher 3 most likely has you salivating at the mouth. This game looks so stunning that I think even the non RPG fans are looking at it with curious interest. I can honestly say that The Witcher 3 is not only one of the most impressive RPG's I have seen for a while, but one of the most impressive games of any genre I've seen, period. It's one of those games that just sounds and looks too good to be true but the reality is it will most likely live up to the lofty expectations set upon it. CD Project Red are a fantastic and talented team, and if anyone can pull this off, they can.

#2) The Division (PS4/X-ONE)

This game is stunning to watch in action. The world that the team as built is so rich and dense visually it's impossible not to be impressed and as the demo proceeded, it was instantly clear that this is a game to pay attention to. Going through the demo in order, the first thing that impresses is seeing the map and HUD in action. It's all built into the game to make sense contextually and it's looking slick so far. Then you start to see how gorgeous the game really is, the smoke billowing from the street as small of a detail as it is, was simply hypnotizing to look at. Then you realize it's an open world and that level of detail seems to be poured over the entire environment.

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Sounds of gunfire sound off in the distance, the team chooses to investigate, finding an event to participate in.

A friend catches you on her map and joins the squad. Now a co-op team, the world is begging to be explored. Sounds of gunfire sound off in the distance, the team chooses to investigate, finding an event to participate in. Once the fire fight starts, the animations and tactical opportunities start to shine. I know a lot of people mention "He closes the cop car door!..." and it's these sorts of comments that reflect how impressive the game is in motion. Everything just looks right and we see all sorts of next-gen touches.

Things get even more impressive as we witness a 4th player enter the game controlling an air drone...at home from his Tablet. This sort of connectivity is what is going to set next-gen apart from this current one more than anything. Once the impressive event is completed, the players are suddenly interrupted by what is revealed to be rival teams in your world, and a PvP scenario begins as the demo ends. There weren't any janky game moments that stood out. As people say, It's all in the details, and The Division seems to be taking that phrase to heart in an incredible way.

#1) TitanFall (X-ONE)

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Jet pack boost, wall running, nimble 'Titans' that can be entered or used as an A.I. ally?...Check, check, check!

The E3 demo speaks for itself. It's off the walls(literally) high speed space marine combat is insane. Right from the get go the game just looks bad-ass and a hell of a lot of fun. The way you load in and wait for the other players, finally warping into the match is visually slick and things just get crazier from there. Jet pack boost, wall running, nimble 'Titans' that can be entered or used as an A.I. ally?...Check, check, check. This game is also coming from the new team at Respawn, which is made up of guys that know a thing or two about creating fantastic multiplayer. It has all the ingredients for a successful game. Time will tell if it's as fun as it looks, but my money is on the team at Respawn to deliver something special.

There are more games I want to talk about and find equally impressive including the insanely chaotic looking Battlefield 4. But I'll save those for another time as to not bore you all. But I'll honorably mention BF4, Ryse, Forza, Drive Club, The Crew, Mario kart 8, X, Watch Dogs, Spark, Order 1886, Crimson Dragon, Killer Instinct...holy crap I could go on and on...Another testament to how many sweet looking games were on display.

I hope you all enjoyed E3 as much as I did. There was a lot to be excited about. All that matters at the end of the day were the games and every party involved at this E3 truly impressed on that front. It's a great time for gamers and next-gen can't get here soon enough.

let me know your thoughts on E3 overall and what games you simply MUST play! Comment below! and Game On!